This is the very reason I don't use my ATV2 and refuse to buy an ATV3. I'm more than happy with the menu system on my ATV1. I have a large library of media I own and I want it on the main menu, not shoved into an obscure computers menu, with a crappy structure that won't even group TV season together.

I think Apple got it pretty much right with the final incarnation of the TV1 UI. It mixed our personal content in with the major headings (menu, TV shows, etc) rather than put it all in "computers." I wish Apple would revisit that very nice layout and go back toward it.

I also wish TV shows with individual (unique) poster art would be resurrected (now it just picks one poster to use for all TV shows with the same show name). And I wish the coders would resurrect "show" tag folders (meaning you could type "Star Wars" in the "show" tag for each of the 6 movies and they would all be organized under a single line item in the movie list (as a folder). You then click into the folder to choose from the 6 movies. Now every single movie is it's own line so all of the serialized movies (Star Wars, Star Trek, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, James Bond, Indiana Jones, etc) are no longer stored in folders.

TV1 had some great (better IMO) UI advantages. I wish they would be resurrected.

I agree with most of the sentiment here. Apple has made such a mess with all of their digital library/AppleTV/home sharing stuff. They have such *potential*. But every aspect of it needs a lot of work, but honestly the work doesn't seem so bad.

AppleTV: Fix the menus, as described in this thread. The home-sharing sucks, and interfaces like Plex, etc, give much better interfaces. As mentioned, just let us "scroll left or right" to see grid views, etc. And why the hell can't we have Apps yet? The *home* screen menu, while not beautiful, is laid out in a way that would be fine for apps. Each app gets a little tv screen icon. Cool, just run with it and let TBS, ABC, NBC, TNT, HBO, CineMax, etc, put their damn apps there!

iPad/iPhone: Oh my god, fix home sharing. It's absolutely broken. There are 5,000 threads on the internet of people trying everything possible to get their TV shows to list properly, and all the molestation of the different metadata fields they have to do, and there is no single solution. And Movies are broken too. How can that be difficult? Just IGNORE all the Artist fields from music, and ONLY use the TV show fields. If it's a TV show, why are you even acknowledging the artist fields? SIGH. I can't believe this is so broken! It's simply unuseable.

I agree with most of the sentiment here. Apple has made such a mess with all of their digital library/AppleTV/home sharing stuff. They have such *potential*. But every aspect of it needs a lot of work, but honestly the work doesn't seem so bad.

AppleTV: Fix the menus, as described in this thread. The home-sharing sucks, and interfaces like Plex, etc, give much better interfaces. As mentioned, just let us "scroll left or right" to see grid views, etc. And why the hell can't we have Apps yet? The *home* screen menu, while not beautiful, is laid out in a way that would be fine for apps. Each app gets a little tv screen icon. Cool, just run with it and let TBS, ABC, NBC, TNT, HBO, CineMax, etc, put their damn apps there!

iPad/iPhone: Oh my god, fix home sharing. It's absolutely broken. There are 5,000 threads on the internet of people trying everything possible to get their TV shows to list properly, and all the molestation of the different metadata fields they have to do, and there is no single solution. And Movies are broken too. How can that be difficult? Just IGNORE all the Artist fields from music, and ONLY use the TV show fields. If it's a TV show, why are you even acknowledging the artist fields? SIGH. I can't believe this is so broken! It's simply unuseable.

MacRumors attracts a broad audience
of both consumers and professionals interested in
the latest technologies and products. We also boast an active community focused on
purchasing decisions and technical aspects of the iPhone, iPod, iPad, and Mac platforms.